Stay
by Cloudraker
Summary: Jonathan Archer/Agent Daniels. One-shot. The Temporal Cold War is over and Enterprise is back to exploring. But the Captain is missing something. Or someone.


"How many times do I need to tell you, Taylor – I like my scrambled eggs _soft_!" Jonathan shot the crewman a glare that could have vaporized a minor asteroid.

"I'm sorry, Sir!" Taylor apologized, not for the first time in the past few months. He hurriedly wiped a smudge off the table, adding "They might have been a little overdone," whereupon he asked Commander Tucker if he wanted more maple syrup. Then the steward promptly ran off into the mess.

The Captain grunted and turned his attention back to his breakfast, cutting away the crust as best he could. It was not until a good moment had passed that he looked up to meet the unified gaze of his shipmates. Trip's eyes immediately darted back to his plate and he stuffed a big load of pancakes into his mouth, busying himself with chewing excessively.

"Are you all right, Captain? You seem a little…agitated," T'Pol asked gently, sipping her water.

Jonathan seemed to consider the question while he downed a forkful of crisp yolk. Then his shoulders dropped a fraction.

"I'm fine, it's just… It gets stuck between my teeth." The corner of his mouth pulled up, but the smile never reached his eyes.

Trip nodded in full agreement.

"Yeah, I hate when that happens! Once, I had a bit of a pecan nut wedged between my front teeth. Right here." He grinned and pointed. "Kept buggin' me the whole shift!"

T'Pol's gaze lingered on Jonathan for a moment while Trip chattered away, but she said nothing further.

. . .

It had been an eventful day. They had charted a globular star cluster, rich in nitrogen- and oxygen gases. Hoshi had picked up a radio signal, but T'Pol had determined it to be of non-artificial origin: a pulsar, a stellar remnant. The dying star had been a rare sighting as its spin had decayed substantially due to advanced age. Travis had brought the ship in for a close fly-by and they had collected all kinds of readings, which had been made a fine addition to the onboard database.

It was good to be back to exploring. He should be more excited, Jonathan reminded himself as he walked along the corridor after the shift was over. The soft buzz of the ship's ventilation, a faint vibration of the engines and people talking at a distance created an ever-present background of noise. Occasionally, a crewman would pass him and the Captain returned the greeting.

Porthos was likely awaiting his evening meal, but Jonathan's feet had brought him on a detour on his way from the bridge. There was a particular place he needed to see before he retired to his quarters, one that had been on his mind the entire day. Finally, he stopped.

Cabin E-14. The door was nondescript, save for the seal that blocked off the entrance. At the moment, the corridor was empty and the conversations had subsided. Not that it mattered, but for some reason he felt relieved. He punched the code on the keypad, lifted off the seal and the door slid open. When it closed again behind him, it seemed to him as if the rest of the ship vanished.

He had been in a hurry to get here, but now Jonathan took each step with great care. Feeling transported back to the time when he had first set foot in these quarters, he recreated his moves. He'd been standing _here_ , in this spot, looking _that_ way. Almost everything had been left untouched: the coat on the hanger, the kettle on the desk. He encouraged the illusion, imagining the actual event still there, buried beneath layers of time. Space-time physicists would no doubt disagree, but his surroundings conjured the experience more strongly than any other place on the ship. There was nothing remarkable to be seen, but somehow the magic still lingered about the place.

The magician, however, was gone.

 _Daniels_. Jonathan remembered how he had been annoyed when the crewman had approached him right after a serious incident in engineering, his growing suspicions upon following Daniels to his quarters and, finally, his dismay to learn that his steward was in fact not a member of Starfleet, but a temporal agent who had infiltrated his ship! But, incredibly, all his apprehension had vaporized the moment Daniels had showed him the – what did he call it? – his "temporal observatory". At the push of a button, Jonathan had been enfolded by swirling timelines and the flux of historic events. Even now as he stood in the quiet and dimly-lit room, he smiled at the memory. He'd been impressed! Hell, he'd been more than overwhelmed!

The device that had produced the virtual effect had been housed in a small suitcase. Jonathan opened the closet to find that the silver casing was still there. The case was empty, of course. Jonathan had been forced to destroy the device to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Hands like Silik's.

Aimlessly, he began to open cabinets and drawers. Most were empty, or contained the usual Starfleet issue. A few personal items might have been left by Daniels's roommate, who had been assigned new quarters when the suite was sealed off.

To his surprise, the top drawer of the desk would not yield. Jonathan's brow wrinkled as he rattled the handle. Finally, he pried it open with a shoehorn he'd found in the closet. But the contents were disappointing: a pair of scissors, rubber bands, a calculator, a deck of cards and some other commonplace items. He wondered why somebody had bothered to lock the drawer. Maybe there had been something else in there, at one time.

He searched the pockets of the coat, looked under the bunk and even lifted the matrass. There was nothing of interest left anywhere. At last, he sat down on the bottom bed, rubbing his face with the palm of his hand. _What was he doing here?_ he asked himself. _What was he looking for?_ _A bounty of futuristic technology? A souvenir to remind himself of his own time travelling adventures?_ Deep down he knew the answer to his questions, but he wouldn't allow the truth to surface. He closed his eyes and massaged the base of his nose with his thumb and index finger. Suddenly, he stopped.

 _Why was the drawer_ still _locked?_

If whatever object of interest had been removed, then why had someone locked the drawer once it was gone?

Jonathan went back to the desk and opened the drawer again. Maybe there was a secret compartment somewhere. He pulled it out as much as he could and felt around the inner sides, but he found nothing. He even got down on his knees and looked underneath it to see if anything had been fastened to the bottom. _This was stupid_. _Porthos was waiting._

Just when he was about to give up, he froze and frowned. Pensively, he reached for the calculator. That didn't really look like any calculator he knew: it had numbers and a display, but there were no operators. He turned it over. On one side, there were a couple of connection ports. After some hesitation, he put the device in his pocket, closed the drawer and left the room. Before the door slid shut, he had one last look at the place. It felt empty. Deserted. With a small sigh, the Captain put the seal back in place and walked away. As he passed the crew quarters the corridor came alive with people again, and in his pocket the mysterious gadget pressed slightly against him, reminding him that he'd not come empty-handed from his treasure hunt. Still, his features stayed somber.

For a long time, he'd told himself that it was the _magic_ he missed.

. . .

 _A blinking monitor, a bed and on it a man, hideously disfigured by the raging effects of temporal flux. While parts of his body have aged almost centuries, others have been reduced to a near-fetal stage. Cortical stimulators are attached to the man's temples and oxygen is being supplied by a tube under his nose to ease his breathing. In spite of that, he is still gasping for air. Reluctantly, Jonathan approaches. He knows what's coming and he doesn't want to be here. Not again. The sound of the struggled breathing is making him physically ill._

 _"Stay with me!"_

 _Jonathan's hands reach out and grab the man by the shoulders. He can sense Phlox's reproaching gaze drilling into his back. But the doctor is mistaken; Jonathan is not pressing the patient for information. He is begging him not to die, for God's sake! Daniels, however, just continues to inform him about the villain Vosk, how to stop him and erase the Temporal Cold War from history altogether. Then, with his last strength, he lifts his head a fraction and locks eyes with Jonathan. But his voice gets stuck in his throat and Daniels suddenly goes limp in his grasp. The agent falls back on the bed and the only sound in Jonathan's ears is the flatline of the heart rate monitor. It drowns everything else, fills him and intensifies into a scream that's about to shatter his eardrums from the inside –_

With a jolt, Jonathan was sitting up, his chest heaving from his own agitated breathing. Bewildered, he twisted around, sweat rolling down his neck. Reality started to flow back: it was dark, nighttime, and he was lying in his bed, in his quarters. His racing body began to relax. With a deep sigh, he lifted off the cover and hauled his legs over the side. A gentle nudge on his bare foot sent a wave of comfort through him.

"It's okay, Porthos," he said. "It was just that bad dream again." The little dog eyed him skeptically, then jumped up at the foot of his bed, circled a few times and lay down.

The floor felt cold to the soles of his feet as he walked over to a cabinet. When he opened the door and took out a canteen of orange juice, light spilled out momentarily. He was still standing in the gloom as he poured himself a glass, put the vessel back and strode across the room to gaze out at the stars through a porthole. He half expected to hear a familiar, soft voice out of a dark corner: _"Jonathan."_

Always "Jonathan". Not "Archer". It wasn't that Daniels had been arrogant, in spite of always having the upper hand on him; the temporal agent had been unfailingly polite and respectful for as long as the Captain had known him. But somehow, they'd been on first-name basis almost from the start. Or at least, Daniels had been. Jonathan wished he'd asked the agent his real name. Afterwards, when he'd consulted the personnel file, it had remarkably just read "Daniels".

Sometimes, when he walked along the corridors of the ship, he imagined suddenly finding himself in the middle of World War II. Or in the distant future, witnessing a historic inauguration between humans and aliens. Such outrageous things had actually happened to him in the past. Jonathan would have thought he'd seen Daniels for the last time, and then, one day, the temporal agent had reappeared as unexpectedly as a ghost. Maybe that's why he had refrained from turning on the lights in his quarters. The dark pockets seemed more likely to produce a phantom than all the illuminated spaces on the ship taken together.

But this time it was different. Jonathan knew Daniels would not return, would not magically materialize in his suite or transport him to another era. He knew, because Jonathan had told him a couple of months ago that he was done with the Temporal Cold War. That he was done with _him_. A pang of regret hit him as he remembered his words. But they'd just been through so many things: the Xindi weapon, the Sphere Builders, Vosk. And he, he'd had to endure Daniels dying – twice. It was…too much. Hell, he hadn't expected his weary words to have any real effect. But when Daniels had said goodbye, Jonathan had dimly realized it was over. And before he knew it – in the blink of an eye – the agent had been gone. For good.

He'd gotten what he asked for. _Damn._ Jonathan stared into the darkness.

. . .

"…and I'll apply these modifications to equalize the plasma flow," Trip concluded.

"Sounds good," Archer said with a nod.

Trip got up and was about to leave the Captain's ready room.

"Oh, I almost forgot," the engineer said and reached into his pocket. His hand returned with the calculator Jonathan had found in Daniels's quarters. "I had a look at this, like you told me to. Now, I'm not certain, but I believe these numbers are for setting coordinates. But here's the thing: it's not just spatial – there's a fourth setting here for time. Beats me what it's for, but it operates on quantum transitions, like a Zeeman Scope. Kind of a…a quantum selector."

Jonathan's heart stopped for a moment.

"A quantum discriminator?"

Trip's eyebrows lifted in surprise.

"Well, yeah. I guess you could call it that."

Jonathan turned the little device over in his hand as Trip left. _A quantum discriminator!_ With this, a communicator and a scanner, he'd be able to send a message through time. 900 years into the future, to be specific. He'd need the spatial coordinates too, but they shouldn't be impossible to calculate. The building to which he'd been transported had been located in San Francisco. Daniels had been having breakfast there, so there was a decent chance it would be either his home or the agency where he worked. With the help of a few landmarks, such as the library, Jonathan was confident that he should be able to pinpoint the location from memory. He'd had a good look around while he was scouting for copper. The hard part would be to remember how to wire the things together. Daniels had done part of the work last time. But at least he wouldn't have to construct a quantum discriminator from scratch. _In high school, there was one in every desk,_ Daniels had told him once. Apparently, he'd brought the tradition with him to Enterprise.

 _What would he say?_ The question kept pecking at him as he started looking around for the items he'd need.

. . .

Jonathan closed the communicator. He wasn't sure it had worked. The scanner still blinked and he shut it off too. Last time, he'd been able to speak to T'Pol over the link, but now there had been no reply at the other end, just static and distortions. He thought he _might_ have heard voices at one time. But his early optimism had ebbed away. In the end, the spatial coordinates were simply guesswork and he wasn't at all sure about the way he'd hooked up the communicator to the scanner, or if the port on the quantum discriminator was even compatible with the connector. Disheartened, he turned down the lights in his room and went to bed. He'd been up well into the night and was weary from exhaustion.

Sometime after midnight, Jonathan was wide awake, his heart beating faster than normal. _The dream again._ But he couldn't recall the vivid images that usually haunted him afterwards. Instead, he had the distinct feeling that something else had roused him. He pulled on a pair of pants and climbed out of the bed, looking for Porthos.

. . .

"It's Elliot."

Jonathan spun around and squinted into the darkness. A figure stepped out of an unlit alcove.

"You asked me," it said softly, "what my real name is. It's Elliot Parker."

Jonathan had frozen to the spot, staring, and wondering for a moment if he was still dreaming after all. Tentatively, he attempted a couple of steps forward.

"You came all this way," he asked, his voice a little unsteady," to tell me that?"

The other man's eyes fixed him intensely.

"You called me, 900 years into the future, to ask me that?" he retorted in half a whisper.

Neither man spoke. Jonathan's features were dark in the faint illumination, but a soft glow scattered off his bare shoulders. Finally, he moved and crossed the distance. The agent's eyes widened imperceptibly. He swallowed, but kept his ground, even as Jonathan came to stand before him. His heart was racing. _Hopefully, this wouldn't alter history in some apocalyphic way_ , the agent reflected for a second. Then he threw caution to the wind as Jonathan grabbed his shoulders and kissed him.

. . .

"Stay with me."

Elliot smiled, gazing up at the ceiling. His ear tickled from the touch of Jonathan's lips. They had delivered the plea between soft kisses, like the sweetest Trojan horse. A pair of arms held him firmly and his own hands rested on top of them.

"What would I do? In this time, I mean," Elliot asked quietly.

Jonathan raised his head a little and Elliot angled his face toward him. The Captain considered the question.

"You could join Starfleet," he suggested mildly. "I got the impression you were not too unhappy with your…temporal assignment here."

"That's true."

"You could even do your field training on Enterprise."

A smile played in the corners of Elliot's mouth and his eyes were very bright.

"You just want your scrambled eggs," he teased.

Jonathan's nose dug into his hair and Elliot felt a warm spot form above his ear.

"Breakfast _is_ the most important meal of the day," Jonathan agreed in a muffled voice that, with each word, shot away little puffs of heat.

Elliot smiled. He closed his eyes as the arms held him tighter and the spot of heat moved down his neck.

Then a wrinkle creased his brow and he opened his eyes again.

"No, that wouldn't do," he said. "You'd be my commanding officer. As I remember, such an involvement is against Starfleet protocol."

Jonathan sighed happily and his deep-set eyes were beaming. These were problems he could handle, problems that didn't involve temporal flux or blaring flatlines. Just plain old bureaucracy. He edged up, leaned forward and molded a deep kiss on his lover's lips. The agent, still concerned and preoccupied with his own thoughts, was caught off-guard. He soon recovered, drew a deep breath and responded with equal fervor.

"We'll figure something out," Jonathan mumbled into his mouth, "There's always a worm- _loophole_ in those things."

~ _The End_ ~


End file.
